the beauty of diversity, community, and uniqueness

Ministry has its up and downs. Such is life.

But one of the joys of planting and pastoring Quest Church is that it’s one of the most unique and diverse communities I have been a part of. This isn’t meant to be a slam against homogeneous churches. In fact, I believe that every community is multicultural on some level – [Hint: think beyond race.] While I miss (very much) the uniqueness of my experiences in Korean-American churches – food, generations, languages, etc. (and still am involved in KA/Asian communities), I now understand why God called Minhee and I to venture out from our homogeneous suburban church into the city to plant Quest and Q Cafe.

While we have a long way to go, we’re thankful that Quest is growing as a multicultural, multigenerational, and urban faith community – with a desire to be an incarnational presence both in the city of Seattle and the larger world – teaching and living out the Gospel of Christ.

Questions: What are ways that you encourage your community to grow in diversity, community, and uniqueness?

These are my encouragements to fellow leaders and pastors:

Know the diversity of your community. Simply, do you know their stories? They may “look” the same but they represent different ‘cultures’ – if not ethnicities. We all have diverse stories. If you know their stories, are you making their stories known? FWIW, this is my story.

Nevertheless, have a vision of the larger Kingdom and the “future Church” and consider what it looks like to take “one step closer…” Even if your church community isn’t ethnically diverse, how are you personally building friendships and encouraging your congregants to live in friendship with neighbors and the larger community? How is your church serving “other” churches and communities – especially those that don’t look like yours? You don’t have to put all your eggs in one basket and think that “worshipping together” is the only expression. Think outside of Sundays and outside the building box.

Be committed to the truth that each person is uniquely created in the image of God. Consider the lessons learned from the story of Susan Boyle of Britain’s Got Talent and meditate on this quote from C. S. Lewis in The Weight Of Glory.

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal , and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with , work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. and our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in sprite of which we love the sinner – no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ verelatitat – the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.”

Why did God call us to plant Quest? It’s hard to put into words but these are some images that show why and give us great joy. We do ministry in hopes of loving and serving people so that we may all be drawn to the Gospel of Christ.

I’m thankful for the beauty of diversity, community, and uniqueness of each person because they give me a glimpse of a larger, deeper, and fuller God and Kingdom. When I exclusivel hang with those that look, think, and view the world just like me, I’m prone to live with blind spots… In short, I see what I see and what I want to see. This is why I need others and yes, why others need me.

I have had a hard time finding resources that are true to our values, and yet diverse in viewpoint…

it seems as though most of the resources out there that include multicultural viewpoints are about multicultural issues, as opposed to simply being about Christ, church, discipleship, etc. yet written from diverse viewpoints…

Where do you go for authors, and other resources?

I haven’t devoted a tremendous amount of time to this, but I have devoted some…

Short answer for my church–we don’t get it. There is a High School down the street from our church. The demographics of that school are:
American Indian/Alaskan Native: 1.1%
Asian: 14.7%
Pacific Islander: 4.2%
Black: 6.3%
Hispanic: 3.8%
White: 62.7%
Qualifing for free lunch: 21.4%
And my own stat: Age 14-18: 100% (duh)

Our Church (on the same street) White: 100%
with one or two exceptions.
Average age: 58+
Average income: well above average.

When we attend any school function or youth sport event we see this amazing diversity–when we go to church it does not exist. WHY would any young people be attracted to our church?

P.S.–this is in Kitsap County, WA–just across Puget Sound from Quest.
My prayer is for us to somehow “get it.”

Good thoughts and incredible photos. The pictures seem to encapsulate exactly what you are talking about. I think it is essential for us to BE diverse, and not try to so hard to produce diversity. When our teams, friends and colleagues are diverse, what we produce will be diverse. It isn’t something you can create, you have to live it. And I agree, it goes beyond skin color, but even that is a tall order for most churches. When the focus becomes diversity, and not loving and engaging people, we have missed the point. Keep loving people in Seattle, you are doing a great work.

That was a great service. We welcomed a family from Africa into our midst, dedicated two children to the Lord and I even remember something in your sermon!!🙂 … You spoke about how it’s time to grow up. You said something about not being a brat anymore. That convicts me over and over again. I’ve been a Christian all my life and it’s time for me to be a changed by that. I need to grow up!!!! Like I said, a great service all around.

[…] Eugene, on April 17th, you did a posting on your blog on the beauty of the diversity of our church and why diversity is so important. It was both encouraging and challenging to me. But there was […]